The CIO Through the Eyes of the CFO

I had the opportunity to have lunch with 8 chief financial officers in Denver last week. Our conversation started with why the CFO should care about IT and what they need to know about technology. Our discussion quickly got to the topic of the roles of the CIO in this changing world of cloud, mobility and social networking. These enabling technologies have made technology much more accessible to non-IT users which raises the question on the role of the CIO and the IT organization in the future. Several CFOs initially questioned whether there is even a need to involve the CIO in making decisions to leverage cloud and mobile applications given that those services are provided outside the four walls of the enterprise. However everyone quickly recognized that there is a need to have someone who is technologically savvy available to advise the CFO and others business leaders on how these emerging technologies can most effectively advance their business.

One CFO described how his CIO has taken on a very active role in partnering with the business units to help drive business innovation. While the CIO had stayed connected with the business units in the past, the conversations have now shifted from tactical IT needs to a more strategic dialogue. He described how the CIO has set up regular innovation meetings with a team from each business unit to discuss ways technology can improve their business. Some of our other clients have taken a similar approach using labs to facilitate the business-IT discussions.

In our discussions there was a realization that the value of the CIO hasn’t been reduced at all – it has just changed. In fact, the need and value that the CIO can play in advancing the business may now be greater than ever. The CFOs agreed that they now need the CIOs to play the role of technology consultant or advisor to help them get the greatest value out of their business driven technology decisions. This provides a need and opportunity for the CIOs to be even more aligned with the business. While CIOs are still needed and expected to manage IT operations and IT vendors, there is now a need for the CIO to also play a more strategic role in helping their company drive business innovation.

great to (finally) hear the recognition from CFOs for a strategic partnership with CIOs

http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevangelist/ Steve Romero

I have to
start celebrating these small victories, and get over my disdain of the
head-shaking ridiculousness of the divide between IT and the business that fostered
the need for the CIO’s role to “change” in the first place. Okay,
celebration over.

Characterizing
the recognition of the strategic nature of the CIO”s role as a
“change” shrouds the fact that the business has long neglected its
role in governing information technology. This neglect is what reduced many IT
organizations to their ‘cost center’ role and their relegation to delivering
efficiencies vs. enabling enterprise strategy. If enterprises don’t govern IT,
then they are not ensuring IT is aligned with the business. They’re not
ensuring IT is delivering value to the business. They’re not ensuring IT is
appropriately managing risk, resources and performance. In lieu of ensuring
these things, the only due-diligence at the disposal of business leaders (and
the CFO) is cost control (or more accurately, cost cutting).

I don’t view
this as a change in the role of the CIO – it’s a correction. Many will say,
“So what?” Who cares why it’s happening, as long as it happens.”
It matters because viewing the “new role” of the CIO as a
“change” will disguise the organizational and systematic deficiencies
born of poor IT governance. If enterprises viewed the new role as a “correction”
they are far more likely to spend the time investigating how, why, where, and
when things went wrong for the CIO – and by association, IT. They might then
uncover their enterprise-level defects in IT governance, process and process management, and organizational
culture. They’ll then have a chance to eliminate the “us and them” relationship
between IT and business once and for all. When they do, all future “changes” to
the CIO and IT will be the result of a natural evolution driven by the business.

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About Chris

Chris Curran a Principal at PwC who works closely with clients on many of their most fundamental IT challenges. As Chief Technologist, Chris leads the advisory practice’s investments in emerging technology, enterprise architecture and technology innovation.. MORE